Bilek 1/72 MiG-19S Farmer

BILEK 1:72 MIKOYAN GUREVICH MIG-19S FARMER

Reviewer: Paul Wherran (contact via SMAKR webmaster)
Kit Review submitted: February 2009

Kit Details:

Bilek #956 - MiG 19 S "Farmer"

Aircraft History:

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 was the first Soviet built mass production supersonic fighter, first seen by the West in July 1955. Many historians argue that it was also the first production supersonic fighter in the world, beating the North American Super Sabre to that acclaim. It was widely used, especially in the late 50's, and was in service with many air forces including Soviet Union and Pakistan. It was licence built (later) in Czechoslovakia as well as in the People's Republic of China where it was designated Shenyang J-6.

The Kit:

Until this kit came out there were very few options to build a mainstream MiG-19S in this scale with only really the Aeroteam and KP examples to choose. This was a little surprising given the importance of the world’s first production supersonic fighter. Inside the box you will find two sprues containing 100 dark grey plastic parts in limited run injection mold. A separate sprue contains the thick and not overly clear windscreen and canopy. Most of the detail is engraved but there are some raised panel lines on the wings. The parts are a bit on the thick side which is indicative of the limited run technology. The smaller parts are probably over scale and the sprue lugs holding the parts to the sprue are thick and quite heavy. Careful removal of the parts from the sprue, particularly the smaller parts which are at risk of breaking, will be required.

Bilek also produce a range of other MiG-19 kits as shown below:

Instructions:

A small booklet and a separate sheet make up the instructions. The booklet contains brief history in Czech and English, painting information for construction and half a dozen assembly steps to build the aircraft. The separate sheet covers the colour schemes of the five aircraft which the kit can build and quotes Modelmaster paints and FS Numbers.

Construction:

As ever this starts in a rather average cockpit and as mentioned in the kit preamble above, the smaller parts need very careful removing from the sprue. I had to replace my control column in this kit. You get a tub with floor that has “chocks” for rudder pedals, basic two piece ejection seat, bulkhead, instrument panel and of course the control column. Some generic looking information is molded onto the instrument panel. All these parts are on the thick side and dry fit runs are a must before assembly. It is a very poor fit into the fuselage half and a bit of effort is required to achieve an eventual fit, which includes sanding out the interior sides of the fuselage to thin it out and carving components of the cockpit tub off. I believe there is a Pavla resin cockpit set for the KP kit which could be used here. The cockpit was painted Medium Grey FS 35237 as called for in the instructions. Nose weight is needed to prevent a tail sitter, and I note the instructions also suggest to put some in the nose of the drop tanks.

The main fuselage halves are split vertically and will go together reasonably well after test fitting and clean up of the thick parts. The rear exhaust sub assembly, forward fuselage and nose section are also added at this point. These provide a few fit challenges, needing a bit of trimming and clean up and subsequent filling and sanding to blend them into the contours of the fuselage. The nosewheel bay was a poor fit and is devoid of detail.

The tail fin was added to the rear fuselage area and this does not match up in thickness with the leading edge of the spine, so after test fitting, yet again a bit of trimming then sanding and filling were needed. The tailplanes fitted okay with a dab of filler at the roots.

Moving onto the main wings construction had been a bit of work but was still going quite well. These are made up of an upper main half and a lower insert piece, which after test fitting and a bit of sanding at the edges fit together nicely. The wing fences were not as forgiving and needed a little bit of work, patience and filler to affix and blend into the wing structure.

The airframe was now more or less complete with the scoops, canopy, undercarriage and stores to add. First up were all those small air scoops. Now plan ahead for this one, as there are 14 in all, and you need to be reasonably patient and have a bit of time up your sleeve to achieve a really good result. The parts need removal from the sprue, careful test fitting and clean up, which usually meant sanding the mating area, and then affixing to the wings and fuselage as denoted in the instructions. A couple of scoops were not fully formed which created some issues but I used them anyway and tried to fix up with dabs of filler, which needless to say was very fiddly.

The gear doors come in one piece for wheels up modellers and contain structural detail on their interior, but sadly it will be a struggle to get the doors to fit in their cavities as they needed trimming to fit. For a static display the doors need to be cut to make three parts as shown in the instructions. The undercarriage legs are thick but also easy to break from the sprue. Their small locating pins into the sparsely detailed wheel wells will not fit into the holes, so either drill them out or shave off the pins and use superglue as I did.

Underwing stores consists of a pair of rocket pods and drop tanks although there are also a pair of Soviet sidewinder clones on the sprues, and there are the gun muzzles to fit on the leading edge of the wing close to the fuselage. Again, patience, test fitting, sanding and a slight adjustment here and there will achieve a reasonable fit. The final part to add was the two piece canopy which can be displayed open. Test fitting revealed some scraping around the edges to get this to fit, and as mentioned above, it is not overly clear.

Colour Schemes:

Five versions can be built from the kit which include the following:

Czechoslovakian MiG-19S in overall Aluminium which is featured on the boxart.
Chinese Shenyang J-6 finished in a dark sand and dark green camouflage over light blue undersides.
North Vietnamese Shenyang J-6 finished in overall aluminium.
East German MiG-19S in overall aluminium.
Soviet MiG-19S from their aerobatic group which is finished in red upperside and aluminium undersides.

Decals:

Tally Ho produces the small decal sheet which has excellent register and has a matt appearance with minimal carrier film. All the roundels are included along with very minimal stencilling including dashes and dots. The decals conformed to the model surface very well and were easy to use.

Accuracy:

There are minor and major flaws of the other mainstream releases of this kit so I was hoping Bilek fixed up a few issues. Overall the look of the aircraft is very convincing with perhaps the exception of the wing sweep which seems just a bit shallow. The plane also sits high on its nose wheel, which when scaled up is probably as noticeable as it is in model form. Dimensions have the MiG-19S come within a millimetre or two of being spot on in length and span measurements.

Conclusions:

There is no doubt that this kit provides several challenges for the modeller to deal with. Its limited nature run should provide enough warning of what one will be involved with in putting this kit together, it is not easy or quick by any stretch of the imagination. I sometimes will sit back after building a kit with lots of fit and other issues and think about whether I was frustrated in the project at any time, and if I wasn’t then that’s a good sign. This applies here. The MiG-19S requires limited run modelling skills to put it together and needs a lot of test fitting, sanding, filling and trimming but it is not a kit that I could honestly say frustrated me at any point. It turned out into an excellent looking finished model and that has to say something as well. So if you can put up with some of the fit challenges and have the skills necessary to overcome then I can whole heartedly recommend this kit to intermediate and above modellers.

References:

World Aircraft Information Files

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